Two men are in custody in a 17-year-old murder case after the fearful wife of one of the suspects went to authorities to report her husband's involvement in the crime.

The suspects are charged in the killing in January 1993 of Laura Lynn Thompson, 15, who disappeared around that time.

Laura was a high school student and the mother of a 9-month-old baby boy when she was reported missing. Investigators believed at the time that the girl may have run away from home.

Shannon Marshall, the wife of suspect Joseph Marshall Jr., told police that her husband, during their engagement in 1993, admitted that he had killed someone, though he did not name the victim at that time, according to a police affidavit.

The affidavit further states:

Last June, Mrs. Marshall went to police with a tape recording she made, detailing what she learned from her husband's statements.

He told her that in January 1993 he and another New Castle man, Sean McDonough, persuaded Laura to hang out with them. They took her to a small cabin in a wooded area in Shenango, Lawrence County, on Mr. McDonough's property.

There, the affidavit said, Mr. McDonough attacked the girl, stabbed her to death, stripped her naked and sexually assaulted her.

Mrs. Marshall told police that she accompanied her husband in the summer of 1993, waiting in the car when he went into the wooded area to dig up the remains from where he said Mr. McDonough had buried her.

He then drove to an undisclosed field and scattered her remains, the affidavit said.

In August 2010, after she had gone to police in July, arrangements were made for Mrs. Marshall to telephone Mr. McDonough, who has relocated to Louisiana. She told Mr. McDonough that she was afraid of her husband.

Police, in the affidavit, said they have cell phone records that show Mr. Marshall and Mr. McDonough had numerous long distance telephone conversations, one of them lasting about 81 minutes immediately after Mrs. Marshall told Mr. McDonough that she had a tape recording for her protection.

District Judge David Rishel arraigned Mr. Marshall today on charges of homicide, abuse of a corpse and conspiracy.

He is being held without bail, pending a preliminary hearing at 1 p.m. Oct. 6 in Lawrence County Central Court.

The district judge said Mr. McDonough had been served an arrest warrant in his new hometown, Thibodaux, La.,

He will be extradited this week to Lawrence County to face the charges, Judge Rishel said.

NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Investigators will begin searching as soon as today for the remains of a 15-year-old New Castle girl whose death recently came to light, more than 17 years after she was killed.

Only three people -- the two suspects and the wife of one of them -- knew that Laura Lynn Thompson had been stabbed to death Jan. 7, 1993, in Shenango, just outside New Castle, investigators said at a news conference Tuesday.

Laura left behind a 9-month-old son when she disappeared. She was reported missing within 48 hours, said police Chief Thomas Sansone, who was a patrolman at the time.

Shannon Marshall was one of the three who knew. Her then-fiance, Joseph Marshall, told her six months later that he had killed someone, and he offered her a chance to break off their engagement.

They married, and they were raising their son and daughter as personal problems and stress began to drive them apart, investigators said. Worse, Mrs. Marshall became more burdened with her husband's confession.

"The homicide weighed on them. She was the only witness. They were splitting up, and there were things she heard," said Joe Hladky, a retired police officer who took up the case in 2008 for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

His report, presented to New Castle police in 2008, pointed toward Mr. Marshall, 39, and his longtime friend, Sean McDonough, as persons of interest.

But, said Chief Sansone, it was Mrs. Marshall's actions this summer that made the case. She had become increasingly wary of her husband, who eventually told her that he had watched Mr. McDonough stab Laura and bury the body.

Also, said District Attorney Joshua Lamancusa, "Joe did something that made [Mrs. Marshall] a little nervous."

In his interview with Mr. Hladky, Mr. Marshall reportedly uttered that Mr. McDonough had once said he killed someone before Laura, Chief Sansone said.

Mrs. Marshall, knowing only the first name of the victim since 1993, searched the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's website and found the report about Laura, the only 15-year-old, red-haired, blue-eyed girl who was missing from New Castle in 1993.

In July, Mrs. Marshall went to New Castle police.

"We were skeptical when she came in," Chief Sansone said. "Within two to three minutes, though, we knew she was on to something."

Mrs. Marshall told both suspects she had made an audio recording of the information she knew. She warned that their crime would be exposed if anything happened to her, according to a police affidavit.

Mrs. Marshall told police that she accompanied her husband in the summer of 1993, waiting in the car when he went into the wooded area to dig up the remains from where he said Mr. McDonough had buried them. He did that soon after state police asked to interview him.

He then drove to an undisclosed field and scattered her remains, the affidavit said.

On Monday, police served warrants on both suspects. Mr. Marshall was taken without incident.

More care was taken with Mr. McDonough, who, four years ago, relocated to a home on rural, secluded property in Thibodaux, La., Mr. Lamancusa said. Officers, accompanied by snipers, arrested Mr. McDonough without incident as well, he said.

While authorities await his extradition, a preliminary hearing has been set for Mr. Marshall at 1 p.m. next Wednesday in Lawrence County Central Court.

Mr. Lamancusa said Laura's mother, Nancy Thompson, and the victim's now-grown son were told Monday what the investigation revealed.

Police will search for Laura's remains with more specifically trained bloodhounds today, along with ground-penetrating sonar.

PITTSBURGH - Two men have been charged in the 1993 killing of a 15-year-old girl after the wife of one of them turned him in, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Shannon Marshall told New Castle and Pennsylvania State Police that she went along when Joseph Marshall Jr., 39, of Pulaski Township dug up and dismembered Laura Thompson's body a few months after she was killed in January 1993.

Marshall's wife also helped implicate Sean McDonough, 38, now of Thibodaux, La., who was arrested Sunday in Louisiana.The men conspired to kill the girl, who had a 9-month-old child at the time, after McDonough raped her, police said in two criminal complaints and affidavits. McDonough also allegedly had sex with Thompson's corpse before the body was buried, police said.

Nancy Thompson, 61, of New Castle, said her daughter had gone to play cards with Marshall and McDonough and she always believed she was alive and would be found.

"I never gave up because I still had intuition in my heart that I knew she was still alive," Thompson told the AP.

Those hopes were crushed when police arrived Monday to tell Thompson her daughter was dead and two men were jailed in her murder.

"They just came today and told me everything, that they caught the two men," Thompson said. She was still attempting to reach her now 18-year-old grandson with news of his mother's death. Thompson said she raised the boy until he was adopted when he was "12 or 13."

Nancy Thompson said she can't yet make funeral arrangements because police are hoping the suspects will help them locate her daughter's remains.

Police didn't immediately return calls for comment, and the court papers don't make clear why Shannon Marshall first went to police in July or whether she would face any charges. She told police she was divorcing Marshall and feared his temper. Shannon Marshall's phone rang unanswered Monday.

Marshall told police that her husband first told her "he had done something very bad," a few months after the killing, a police affidavit said.

"Joseph Marshall went on to state that he had killed someone. Shannon stated that after telling her that he had killed someone he pulled the car over and told Shannon, 'If you want to get out, get out now,"' according to the court papers.

Instead, she stayed with Marshall, who said he didn't ever want to talk about the killing again. But that changed in the summer of 1993, when a detective tried to contact Joseph Marshall about Thompson's disappearance.

Shortly afterward, he told her that he had killed the girl, who he identified only as 'Laura,' by stabbing her in the back, she told police. Marshall then drove her to a wooded area near Route 422 in Shenango Township where he dug up a corpse while she acted as a lookout, according to her police statement. Joseph Marshall took the remains and scattered them in a field near Route 108 in Hickory Township, a few miles away, she told police.

Police charged McDonough after Joseph Marshall allegedly confessed to the crimes on Saturday, while his wife was present, and based on conversations Shannon Marshall had with McDonough on the telephone beginning in August - some of which police recorded.

In her police statements, Shannon Marshall said she called McDonough to tell him she knew about the killing and that she had tape recorded a statement about what she knew for the police to find should anything happen to her. After telling police about those conversations, police recorded more calls to McDonough, in which he accused her of "pumping" him for information about the killing.

Confronted with his wife's statements, Joseph Marshall told police on Saturday that he and McDonough drank beer and hung out with Thompson before driving her to a cabin McDonough had in the woods. Contrary to the story his wife claimed he had previously told, Joseph Marshall said McDonough wrestled the girl to the floor and stabbed her in the back as she screamed, then had sex with her after she stopped moving.

Marshall told police he merely watched as that unfolded, and said it was McDonough who buried the girl in a shallow grave. Joseph Marshall told police that McDonough claimed to have returned months later to get rid of the body's skull, teeth and hands - and that those parts of the corpse were, indeed, gone when he dug up the body while Shannon Marshall watched, and dumped them in a nearby ravine.

Marshall is in the Lawrence County Jail without bond, while McDonough was in custody awaiting extradition to Pennsylvania. Both men are charged with first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit criminal homicide and lesser murder counts. Marshall also is charged with abuse of a corpse for allegedly digging up the victim's remains.

McDonough faces additional charges including forcible rape, rape of an unconscious victim, and abuse of a corpse - both for allegedly dismembering the corpse and for sex acts committed with it.

Online court records don't list attorneys for either men. Messages left numbers listed as cell phones for both men were not returned.

Updated: Wednesday, March 9, 2011 23:03WCN 24/7 has confirmed that Lawrence County District Attorney Joshua Lamancusa has filed court papers saying he'll seek the death penalty against one of two defendants in the murder of a 15-year-old girl in 1993.

State police arrested 39-year-old Joseph Marshall Jr., of Pulaski Township, and 38-year-old Sean McDonough, of Thibodaux, La., last September after Marshall's estranged wife told authorities Marshall had confessed to killing Laura Lynn Thompson a few months after her January 1993 murder. The Marshalls were engaged at the time.

By Eric Poole epoole@ellwoodcityledger.comNEW CASTLE -- Until almost five years ago, the disappearance of Laura Thompson was the coldest of cold cases.

Thompson, a 15-year-old single mother, vanished Jan. 6, 1993, after last being seen at a New Castle restaurant. Investigators in Lawrence County believed she had been murdered, but they didn't have a body to prove it, much less a suspect.This week, more than 22 years after Thompson went missing, Sean McDonough was sentenced to eight to 16 years in prison in her murder, and his friend Joseph Marshall pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse, based on accusations that he disposed of Thompson's body.

Based on the ex-wife's report, police searched property once occupied by McDonough, who had since left the New Castle area, and a ravine where authorities believed Marshall had disposed of Thompson's body. In spite of a combined effort involving the K-9 SOS search dog service and Mercyhurst College's forensic anthropology department, Thompson's body was never found.

Lamancusa said the body might have been irretrievably buried about 15 years ago, when a farmer dumped a demolished barn and large amount of dirt into the ravine.

The lack of a body made the job of prosecuting McDonough and Marshall difficult. Before Lamancusa could make an accusation against them, he would have to prove that Thompson had, in fact, been murdered and not merely run away.

"That was one of our challenges," Lamancusa said. "How do we establish that she was deceased?"

The district attorney said difficulties in prosecuting a murder case without a body were a factor in the decision to accept a third-degree murder plea from McDonough, who is believed to have raped Thompson. Lamancusa said he is recommending that McDonough serve as close to the maximum sentence as possible.

Logged

Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware/Of giving your heart to a dog to tear -- Rudyard KiplingI'm with the majority of American's that voted for Hillary Clinton...and I am a registered Republican!